The fine print? You have to leave a comment, and in the right places leave your name and email address. For bonus points you can tell people about the amazing photography education resources available for the ridiculously low price of $5 over at the Craft & Vision website, but that’s more for the keeners who do this kind of thing because they like to, not because they have to. Leave your name once, tell the world, that’s all. It’s an honour system thing. Well, the “tell the world” part is. The “leave your name and email address” part is actual pretty mandatory.

So there you have it. Huge thanks to Adobe for sharing the love with this community with no strings attached.

Last month we launched the new Craft & Vision website and invited readers past and present to leave honest reviews of the books. As a thank you for the participation we put an iPad on the line and this morning I’m announcing the lucky winner of that iPad. So huge congrats to Pam Idel! Pam, we’ll drop you a line and get details but I think we’re going to send a gift certificate, so if you want to upgrade or pick something more useful to you, then you’re free to do that.

The rest of you? Huge thank you! It was a year ago I went to Thailand with The Legendary H and he planted the seeds of this idea in my mind, and when TEN came out it changed the direction of things for me and got me involved in a larger community than I ever imagined – and you all are that community, so thank you. We’ve made our purpose to align ourselves with the amateurs – the ones who do this for the love of it (regardless of whether you also make money at this) and I hope our passion comes through. We’re committed to keep offering inspiration and education for ridiculous prices; if you keep reading, we’ll keep looking for new photographers and new books.

Now, the big news for those of you who didn’t win – and there are a few hundred of you -  because I’m feeling the love and I had a nice chat with the folks over at Adobe, they’ve put a full CS5 Master Collection on the line for us. Mac or PC, depends on who wins. This is the mothership of collections, and the one I use daily. Last I checked this was retailing for $2600, so it’s up there as one of the most expensive give-aways we’ve ever had. Stay tuned later this week for the full details!

Wow, for a country just off the coast of Canada, it sure seemed to take a while to get back from Iceland. 24 hours of traveling, 2 border crossings, three airlines, and a couple hours of sleep later, and I’m home. What an amazing trip. This trip was a chance for me to do some creative exercises, get some down time (and by that I mean, working like a dog to keep up with Dave Delnea), and create a small body of work that I could add to my portfolio. I also wanted to come out of it with enough images to show, and lessons learned that I could teach and though I don’t know when it’ll release, the next Craft & Vision eBook out of me personally will be in The Print & The Process series and it’ll be about the Iceland trip. I’ve been chipping away at it, and I’m really excited to work on it, as these books are themselves part of the creative process for me. I’ll keep you posted, but don’t hold your breath, it’ won’t be for a little while.

On July 16th I posted a thing about the new book, Vision & Voice. A bunch of y’all put your names in the magic hat for signed copies and I’ve just drawn three names – the numbers that came up were #49, #166, and #273 – so congrats to Susan, Jennifer, and Noel. Emails have been sent, when you get me your shipping addresses I’ll fire these babies off to you!

While we’re on the topic of Vision & Voice, I’ve got what I hope is an appropriate and understated request. If you’ve read the book and enjoyed it, and can recommend it, would you leave a review on Amazon.com? I’m not asking for anything more than your enthusiasm and your honesty, but as it turns out this kind of thing makes a big difference in the world of books.

OK, more later. I have bags to unpack, a tent to dry out, sensors to clean, and a mound of “I’ve been away from the office for almost two weeks” to get through. Nice to be back, I missed y’all.

I’m really – REALLY – excited to announce that the new Craft & Vision website just went up. There will be a tweak here and there in the coming days but it’s live and functional and I think it’s going to make the process of buying and enjoying the Craft & Vision eBooks that much better. What does it mean to you?

A cleaner site with a little more ease of use, as well as a home for comments and reviews – In the past the only way to leave a review has been on my blog. You can now leave your reviews where they belong, and to encourage you to do so we’re giving away an iPad! Whether you read the PDFs or buy the Apps, Craft & Vision eBooks and the Apple iPad go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly, so we’re giving one away.

What we’re hoping for are some honest (hopefully honestly enthusiastic ) reviews for the individual books. We aren’t looking for empty praise and we aren’t looking for anyone to pad the site with fluff. If you’ve bought the books, read them and love them, we welcome you to write a short review for the book. If you’ve read’em all, feel free to pick a couple favourites. If you’ve already left those comments on the blog here, feel free to copy and paste them onto the new site. We could do that but it kind of feels like it lacks integrity and would rather leave that up to you. Leave a review and you’ll have a chance to win. Leave a couple reviews, and you’ll have a couple chances to win. Note: This is something we’re doing as a service to future buyers, not to pad our egos, so if we feel you’re just dropping lame comments in order to win, we’ll pull the comments. Be enthusiastic, be honest, and don’t even think about being anonymous if you hope to win the iPad.

You’ll notice a couple other things too. We’ve added a link to buy all the books at once, and there will be a permanent 20% discount for those that do. Makes life easier, especially if you’re an affiliate referring people to the site for the first time. We’ve also added links to buy the iPad apps. Same price, same content, different format. And while we’re talking Apps, there is a free App coming that will function as a one-stop iPad shop for the books – download it once and you’ll be able to access the books easily, get some free wallpapers, and stay up to date on all things Craft & Vision.

When I began Craft & Vision a year ago I had no idea it would become what it has. And we’re only just beginning. It’s been an incredible ride. All along we’ve been grateful for your support and your feedback. Thank you so much. I do this, and now the rest of my team – Corwin, Justin, Sabrina, Susanna – do this, because we share your passion for photography and we believe we can create amazing resources to help you improve your craft without buying gear. And at $5 each they cost less than a Starbucks latte, last longer, and won’t make you gassy and bloated. They’ll also get you into great education resources with less ads, and leave you budget left over for that new piece of gear you’re going to buy anyways.

Thank you so much for being part of this. We’re releasing Eli Reinholdtsen’s book, Chasing Reflections, next week. I’ll be in Iceland at the time but the launch will go ahead as it always does, with discounts, on Thursday the 29th.

In the meantime, leave a review or two on the new Craft & Vision site, each book has a spot for reviews so put’em there. Be sure to leave your name and email. On August 31st we’ll randomly draw from all the reviews and send a 16GB WiFi iPad to one lucky winner. This is open to everyone, so international readers can finally get some loving!

See the new Craft&Vision website at it’s usual address on the internet – www.CraftAndVision.com- Special thanks to Stuart Sipahigil (@digitalstew) and his team at Outside Source Design for working with us on this.

Earlier this month we announced a random draw for a canvas from Artistic Photo Canvas. The deal was simple. Put your name in the hat, and as long as you have a Canadian or U.S. mailing address you’d be eligible to win a chance at getting a 16×24 canvas of your own work, as well as one of mine. I’m going to announce the winner in a moment but first I want to pass along an offer APC is giving to everyone.

When I talked to Lew at APC about this, he was really excited to give away the canvases, and frankly this is a pretty generous giveaway; Lew and his crew at APC are like that. But he wanted to sweeten the deal for everyone that didn’t win. So if you order a 16×24, or larger, canvas before midnight PST on July 6th, Lew will also give you a free 8×12 of the same Venice print I’m giving to the winner.  There are two catches. The first, and I’m sorry to do it to my international friends, is that this offer is only for Canadian and U.S. customers. Sorry. The second is that there’s only one free canvas per customer.

I love my work on canvas and APC is my choice. I was struck by the percentage of people that commented on this blog post with comments like, “I’m not worthy” or “My work isn’t good enough.”  All I can say is that your work doesn’t have to be perfect to print it. How can you really develop your craft without printing your work? By all means, only print the stuff you love, but if I waited for my work to be perfect I’d never print anything.

APC is an eco-friendly lab; the first and only major online lab to exclusively use only OBA-free and fluorescent whitening agent-free canvas, and that means a lot to me. It also means your photographs last longer without going yellow. They only print on canvas and I really believe they’re the best in the business. I love these guys. They are personal and professional and everything they’ve done for me has been amazing. Anyways, I’ll stop gushing. If you want to see how good your photographs can look, put one on big canvas.

Here’s what you need to know about placing an order to get the free Venice print. Go to the website, place your order and use coupon code: ONEOFYOURS. Easy-peasy. They’ll send you an 8×12 canvas of my work, along with the 16×24, or larger, of yours.

Now, without further ado…the winner of this month’s giveaway is Meryl Alcabes! Congratulations, Meryl! Lew will be touching base with you to get your prizes to you. We’d love to see what the canvases look like so feel free to take a picture once they’re safe and hung with care in your home.

New Website
In a couple weeks the Craft & Vision website will be re-launched with a new design and increased functionality – from there you’ll be able to buy each book as either a PDF or an App. And the App’s are only $4.99, so if you’re looking to save a penny, there are deals to be had! The apps look fantastic and function really well on the iPad. Speaking of iPads…

Win An iPad
When the new website launches (Soon! We’re aiming for mid-July) we’ll be asking for your help. The new site will allow users to leave comments and reviews. In the past readers have just left comments on the blog, but as we grow we’re looking for some help. If you’ve bought any of the books we’d love to have you jump onto the new site and leave an honest review or two. We’re not looking for you to pander to us, or to lie, just to leave some feedback and reactions that will help future readers. And in return we’ll put each comment into a hat and do a draw for an Apple iPad loaded with the full library of Craft & Vision eBook apps. Stay tuned!

It’s been far too long since I’ve done a giveaway on the blog. What can I say, I got busy and it takes time to beg for free stuff.

I’ve been wanting to shine the light on my friends at Artistic Photo Canvas again and as the time rolls around for me to do a few more canvases I asked Lew at APC if he’d share the loving with you. So here’s what we’re going to do. At the end of the month-ish I’ll do a random draw from the comments left at the bottom of this post. The winner will receive 2 canvases. One will be a print of mine, something from my VENICE series, printed specially for you. The other will be a print of yours. Lew will work with you to get you amazing 16×24 canvases of both your work and mine.

Artistic Photo Canvas does an exceptional job, and they are the only ones I’ll use for printing my work on canvas. Their work hangs proudly in several places in my home, and consistently gets amazed reactions from other photographers for the quality, clarity, and colour-fidelity. True archival giclée prints on canvas shipped to your door, and created by a team who values exceptional customer service. If you’ve never seen your work large, you owe it to your photographs a chance to speak this loudly and clearly.

Want a chance at a couple gorgeous canvases? First, please do check out the APC website. Secondly, please leave a comment on this post. Make sure you leave your name and email in the fields provided. I don’t have time to hunt you down. Lastly, and sadly, this is open only to people with – or willing to arrange – a mailing address in the U.S. and Canada. Sorry, folks, but shipping on these can be pretty hefty. Them’s the rules.

To be clear, APC sponsors me, but from the beginning I have chosen my sponsors because I use them, love them, and admire the way they interact with the photographic community. If I didn’t use them for my own work, I wouldn’t recommend them or take them on as a sponsor. Lew and his team have not only my support but my friendship and respect.We sometimes forget the power of the large print, but if all you ever do is see it on your monitor/display, then you’re missing out.

At the beginning of the month I announced the BIG FAT BUSINESS CARD GIVEAWAY THING. The contest name was big. The prize package was also big. It was launched this month because November was the month VisionMongers was released. I got a new book, one of you got a bunch of stuff. Seemed only fair.

The winner, after pulling out mulitple entries, adding extra points for the top ten creative entries, and consulting the random-o-tron, was Tim Toole, which is particularly gratifying to me because like me, Tim was once a comedian.  He’s also a heck of a photographer and his images of the tooth fairy still make me chuckle. So Tim, I’ll drop you a line and arrange to get this stuff to you.

Honorable mention goes to Magda and Maciek for Most Creative entry, Toni from daily vignette for Biggest Attempted Suck-up, Scott Sporleder for Most eye-catching, and Matt Beatty for Most Sarcastic. Sadly, there are no prizes for these categories, only the knowledge that you made me smile

Tim’s got a nice box of goodies coming his way, thanks to all of you for playing.

I encourage you to all look through the Flickr pool, even if you didn’t enter. The take away from this is that business cards can be – and should be – as unique as the people, and businesses, they represent. But they are all pieces of visual communication, and all of them say something about – intentional or otherwise – about those same people and businesses. Consider taking a long look at the business card you use to represent you. Is it consistent with all your other marketing efforts? Is it creative? Is it congruent with who you are, and what your branding says you are? Is it well-designed or does it need work?

I bring this up because it’s so easy to get a stack of business cards done for $20.00 but can you afford to? This is communication, in much the same way as photography is communication. I’m not suggesting you go into debt to get great cards, just asking you to consider who you are, who your market is, and if your current cards are truly the best way to represent you to your market. Some of you have photographs on your cards; are they the best images you could be using? Do they open conversations or do they pigeon-hole you? Some of you have cards that are hard to read – why? Some of you have cards that you really like but that are poorly designed, have you considered how this establishes an expectation in your market that will affect what you can and can’t charge?

Such a small thing, but it’s often the first impression or the one that lingers the longest because it says things about you when you are not there to say those things yourself.

Congrats again to Tim, and huge thanks to OnOne software, Kelby Training, Evrium, Peachpit, Steven Pressfield, and Selena Maitreya for sponsoring the giveaway!

Yesterday a lot of people said a lot of very kind things and though I’ve never needed reminding how much I like y’all, well, yesterday just capped it. Your support and encouragement means a lot to me. So I’ve got a little something for you, just to say thank you. I’ve put together 16 of my favourite wallpaper-type images into one collection and I’m giving it away. Well, that’s not entirely true, I’m giving it away to you. Others that just stumble upon it in the store, well, they’ll pay a whopping $2 for it. But not you, you get it free. Because I love you.

At the bottom of this post there are links to put this into your cart and check out. So go ahead, put it into your cart, then use this coupon code: FREE1104 and you’ll be whisked through the free checkout line. Thanks again for being the one of the best communities on the internet – I’m honored you’ve thrown in your lot with me (UPDATE – Turns out there is a limit of 100 of these downloads a day, so CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD DIRECT FROM MY SERVER – please let me know if there are any further issues. Apologies for the oversight.)

This will come to you as a zipped folder. Unzip the folder and you’ll have a folder of 16 jpg images. Not sure how PC people do this, so if you’re good with this stuff, feel free to leave instructions in the comments. But Mac peeps should just be able to move all 16 images to their iPhoto library. Assuming you’ve got your photos to sync on the iphone, plug the iphone in and sync that sucker. Then choose the image you want and set it to desktop wallpaper. In theory this should all be pretty painless. If not, ask for help in the comments and I, or someone else, will try to help.

Sometime in the middle of this month my new book, VisionMongers, will hit shelves and the mailboxes of those that pre-ordered them on Amazon.com. So to make a splash, and to tell the world, I decided to up the ante on the whole “give away some free books” thing. So here’s more details on the BIG FAT Business Card Giveaway Thing.

What’s In It For Me?

Well, all I want is to tell the world about the book. The more people that know about the book, the more potential buyers, the greater the chance I can take my wife to dinner on Friday nights. That’s it.

What’s In It For You?

The winner of this Giveaway Thing, and there will be only one, will get a prize package of goodies that anyone wanting to make a life and a living in photography will make good use of. That package includes:

A Copy of Within The Frame, signed by me, Joe McNally, and Vincent Versace

A Copy of VisionMongers, signed.

PDF copies of all my current eBooks - Ten, Ten More, Drawing The Eye, and by the time we draw for this, Chasing The Look will also be out.

A signed copy of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, mandatory and inspiring reading for VisionMongers.

A copy of Selina Maitreya’s Mp3 series, The View From Here - a fantastic resource on entering, and staying in, the world of commercial photography.

A $200 credit with Peachit Press, to stock your shelf with learning resources.

A 1-year subscription to Kelby Training online resources. Some of the best teachers on the planet, all available 24/7 on your browser.

An Evrium Software FLUID GALLERIES PROFESSIONAL package. Show your work to the world.This is the software that drives my portfolio and I love it.

A full OnOne Software PlugIn Suite 4.5 package, courtesy of the fine folks at OnOne Software.

So, How Do You Enter to Win All This Prizey Goodness?

I’ve created a Flickr group HERE. You go there and post one image of your business card. It could be a scan or a photograph, it could be a drawing on a napkin that you photographed then scanned. Don’t have a business card? Carve one into a gourd or draw one in the sand. The top ten most creative images will get bonus points and entered twice, doubling your chances.

Don’t enter here.

Don’t email me your cards.

Just go to the Flickr group and post your image.

Your business card will have your phone number or email on it, and it’ll be clear, right? That’s how I’ll notify the winner. If the name, number, or email are illegible I’ll draw someone else’s name. The draw will take place at the end of November. Also, you should know that karmically you have a better chance of winning if you also buy my book which is available here on Amazon.com. Hey, I’m just saying… Good luck!